ONE TRIBE
A NEW ERA OF OFFSETTING
CHRISTOPHER BARRETT
On the back of reports claiming a huge number of carbon offsetting projects to be worthless , we speak to One Tribe founder and CEO Ric Porteus about how the controversy has driven positive change in the sector , and why he is convinced offsetting is a vitally import route for the live event industry to take on its journey to net zero
What led you to launch One Tribe ? In 2018 I was in New York working for a blockchain company on a rainforest protection coding-based protocol to enable global companies and individuals to contribute to rainforest preservation through everyday transactions . That led me to meet many indigenous tribes , First Nations , rainforest protection organisations , charities and NGOs to really understand what they needed , how they accept and gain finance to manage , protect and regenerate . Doing that groundwork gave us an understanding of how global conservation ; when it comes to land protection , biodiversity and regeneration , functions . Once we understood that framework , we looked at how we could generate a revenue model to fund it efficiently and be a profitable business at the same time . That took us into forming One Tribe . Our cofounder Tom Murray was in rainforest conservation . He was down in Panama , protecting and regenerating areas , planting hardwood native species , while others we worked with were involved in the Rainforest Trust ; which is one of the biggest US conservation organisations .
The concept behind One Tribe was born out of us realising ‘ we ' re all doing this anyway so let ' s see if we can unite as one brand to connect CEOs with chief and council ’. We do that via a technology platform so they can access climate finance , and businesses can offset their emissions in nature-based solutions .
We ' re fanatical about nature-based solutions ; really focused on rain forest protection , regeneration , wind , solar energy , biomass ; anything that is naturebased as opposed to hard technology . That ' s really where we believe that the most mitigation for climate change can happen . The biggest need is to protect and regenerate biodiversity at scale .
Is the events industry a priority for One Tribe ? Once we had established our conservation partners , it was a matter of bringing in the finance . So we built a platform to serve the events industry , and as an ex-director of the Pacha Group we accessaa . co . uk 43